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How Much Are Those Dusty DVDs On Your Shelf Really Worth? Try $105.61!

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Alright, I know I’m not alone on this one so here we go. A few years ago for some reason that I don’t fully understand, I started building a ridiculously large (and expensive) DVD collection. I was so stupidly proud of this ever-expanding DVD collection that I even kept a page here on JerseySmarts.com to keep track of all of my DVDs. At one point, I had over 300 DVDs! Go ahead, click over to the page and take a look at what’s left of the collection. I can wait.

Done? Good!

Thanks, F.Y.E.!

Back in the early 2000’s when I started building this collection I might have thought that owning all of those DVDs was some type of status symbol. You know, something along the lines of he who dies with the most toys wins. Who knows what I was thinking. The truth is that these days I look at that DVD collection as a monstrous ode to the way I used to spend money like a drunken sailor. Talk about wasteful spending – I don’t even want to speculate on how many hundreds thousands of dollars that my family (via gifts) and I spent on this collection. The thought is revolting.

What was all of that spending for? I don’t really know. What I do know, however, is that these days I literally have to blow the dust off of my DVDs before I pull out a case to watch a movie. I also know that the only movies that I watch on a regular basis are my Christmas movies and Lord of the Rings movies – and I only watch them once or twice per year!

My reason for going over all of this information before getting to the meat of this entry is to lay the groundwork for how good I felt the other day. You see, the other day a video game was released that I wanted to buy. I don’t buy many video games because, frankly, I don’t have the time to play them. However, whenever a game comes out that seems like it might be fun and worth the money, I’ll buy the game. Well, you all know that I have this incredible student loan debt that I’m paying off via a crazy intense repayment plan that I put myself on. Let’s do some quick math:

New Video Game + Student Loan Debt = You’re Not Buying The Game

It’s simple. As I alluded to in my last student loan entry, I wanted the game, but I didn’t need the game. Yet in the real world game of money (which we’re all playing whether you know it or not) there are often opportunities to rearrange one’s existing assets to allow for new assets to be acquired.

What does that mean? Easy. It means that I set my eyes on the dusty DVD collection sitting in my bedroom and thought to myself, “I want that game and I’m willing to unload these assets to get it.” And that’s just what I did at the end of last week. I rounded up some 50+ DVDs, threw them in a bag, and went to my local F.Y.E. to trade them in. F.Y.E. actually offers either cash or store credit for your used DVDs. When I arrived at the store, the kid behind the counter told me that I would get more for each DVD if I accepted store credit instead of cash, so I went with that option.

Below is a list with all of the DVDs that I traded in for store credit and how much I received for each one. It’s pretty interesting.

What's left of my DVD collection

Starsky and Hutch – $2.15
Saturday Night Live: The Best of Jon Lovitz – $0.31
Joe Dirt – $1.25
Analyze This – $1.25
Boiler Room – $1.25
Grumpy Old Men – $2.50
Grumpier Old Men – $0.31
Ghostbusters 1 & 2 – $2.50
Zoolander – $1.25
Farhenhype 9/11 – $1.25
Fraggle Rock – Where it All Began – $2.50
The Island – $2.50
The Dukes of Hazzard – $2.50
Anchorman – $2.50
Alice in Wonderland: Made for TV Movie – $2.50
Dude, Where’s My Car? – $1.25
Rocky Triple Pack (Rocky 1, 2, and 3) – $4.38
National Treasure – $1.25
Planet of the Apes – $1.25
Spider-Man Deluxe Edition – $2.69
Spider-Man 2 – $2.50
The Day After Tomorrow – $1.25
Fantastic 4 – $1.25
A Fish Called Wanda – $2.50
Edward Scissorhands – $1.88
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Top 10 Episodes from Season 1 – $2.50
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – $2.50
i, Robot – $2.50
Seven – $2.50
Men in Black II – $1.25
The Future is Wild – $3.75
Shark Tale – $1.25
Chicken Run – $2.50
Hulk – $1.25
The Green Mile – $1.88
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure – $5.63
TNA Genesis 2005 – $2.50
The Rock – The People’s Champion – $4.84
‘Cause Stone Cold Said So – $1.25
Austin 3:16: Uncensored – $1.25
SummerSlam 2001 – $5.91
Unforgiven 2001 – $5.63
X-Men 1.5 – $2.50
X-Men 2 – $1.25
X-Men 3 – $2.50
Forrest Gump – $1.25
Million Dollar Baby – $2.50

Who would have thunk that Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (one of the many DVDs that I purchased, but never actually watched) would be worth over $5 to F.Y.E.? Amazing.

How much did I get for all of these unused, dust-collecting DVDs? How does $105.61 in store credit sound?! Not bad! What’s better is that the video game and necessary peripheral that I purchased from F.Y.E. wound up costing $102.69 after shipping and taxes. Talk about hitting the nail right on the head!

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And at the end of the day, not only have I rearranged some of my assets to acquire two new assets, but I unloaded a big portion of my dusty DVD collection. I don’t think that I’m on track to get rid of all of my DVDs, but I’m definitely looking at the DVDs you see in that picture and asking myself, “Which ones are next?”

🙂

Looks Like General Motors is Telling Fibs…

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Hmmm… Yesterday, I posted an entry talking about how there are some Monmouth University alumni and undergraduates who are hooting and hollering about Governor Chris Christie speaking at this year’s Commencement. In short, they are spewing straight lies that are clearly untrue on their face. Today, I have an entry talking about some lying that our friends and Governm- sorry, I mean General Motors might be doing.

This is the text of an e-mail that I received from General Motors at the end of last week:

We are proud to announce we have repaid our government loan – in full, with interest, five years ahead of the original schedule. We realize we still have more to do. Our goal is to exceed every expectation you’ve set for us. We’re designing, building and selling the best cars and trucks in the world. Like the award-winning Chevy Malibu, the all-new Buick LaCrosse, the versatile Cadillac CTS Sport Wagon and the innovative GMC Terrain, just to name a few. We invite you to learn more about the new GM and join our community, by visiting gm.com.

Now, if I’m not mistaken it has already been proven that while General Motors has paid off its government loan, they paid off those bailout funds with other bailout funds! Now come on, people. Is that really a smart issue to build a marketing campaign around? Even after the most basic of “digging” do you begin to find that General Motors has not, in fact, repaid its commitments to the government.

Talk about bad form on General Motors’ part. Someone should get fired for that advertising campaign and I would strongly suggest that General Motors’ public relations department kick it into high gear to clean this mess up!

Does Anyone Have Any Recommendations or Comments About Skype?

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With the economy the way it is and me constantly struggling to trim the fat from my website company’s annual expenses, I’ve started to look into voice over IP (VoIP) options for my telephone needs. Currently, I have a cell phone and a land line that are both paid for by the website company. In an ideal world, I wouldn’t spend nearly $100 per month on a ridiculous cell phone plan that requires me to purchase broadband access. Without the broadband access, I’d be able to reduce my monthly cell phone bill by a little over $30. That’s significant enough to warrant further research, but it’s not the impetus for this entry on the blog!

Recommendations anyone?

Instead, the impetus for this blog entry is the fact that I pay $39.03 each month for my land line phone – a phone that I use sparingly. Actually, if I use that phone for more than 50 minutes per month, I’d be surprised. Every once in a while I have a conference call that I need to call in to when I’m working at my home office, but it appears that I can still get on those calls if I have a VoIP service.

Which brings me to Skype. On my recent trip to Nashville, I was talking to one of my fellow Board Trustees told me about Skype’s effectiveness and cost efficiencies. From our conversation, I went on Facebook and asked whether anyone had any ideas or comments about the Skype product. These are some of the comments that I received from my Facebook buddies:

it essentially is like aol instant messenger with more options. You can make phone calls around the world, and also do video chats.. I use it for work a lot. Skype can also be added to some phones to make free phone calls if u have a skype account.

just remember that when your network or electric goes out… so does skype… However if you have a cel at home too… maybe not necessary.. also at times the quality is “Iffy” but as a positive, you can also do video calls…

Skype is wonderful. I talk to people all over the world, conference calls all for free!!

Get a Skype enabled phone and you can benefit from VoIP at home or even just sync your Bluetooth headset to your laptop and walk around making calls. I’ve used it while traveling overseas and it was a great cost saver.

Skype is sweet because its free and you can communicate with someone from long distance instantly.

All of this is good information. Based off of these seemingly good reviews, I did some more research and found out that I can get a yearly subscription to Skype for $30. That subscription will allow me to have unlimited calls in the United States and Canada (unlike my buddies on Facebook, I don’t make international calls because, well, I don’t know anybody outside of the United States!). I also found out that I can get an “online” telephone number for about $30 per year (after discounts). This would allow people to call my Skype account from their land line or cell phones.

On top of that, in order to get the maximum use out of Skype I’d have to get a webcam (though I really don’t foresee a need for me to make video calls, but who knows). I have a microphone and stereo headset already, so I don’t really need those items (but I’d probably buy new stuff anyway). On the low end of the hardware necessity, I could potentially spend nothing and just use my existing microphone and stereo headset. If I wanted to just get a mid level webcam, I could spend $20. Or I could go for the total package and get top of the line stuff for over $100.

Hardware costs aside, moving from my land line to Skype would reduce my annual telephone expenses from $468.36 with Comcast’s land line to about $60 with Skype. That’s a pretty significant drop for a very small business.

With all of that said – can anyone reading this blog entry out there on the interwebs offer some advice on whether or not I should move to Skype or a different VoIP service? I’m interested in reading your thoughts!

A Double Drop on the Student Loans This Time Around

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Today is a good day – and not just because the spring weather feels good and it’s a nice day outside. No, in fact today is a good day because my student loan debt has dropped from $88 thousand to $86 thousand. That’s not a typo either, folks. After getting my federal tax return at the beginning of this month, I decided to apply a large portion of it towards paying down my New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (NJHESAA) student loan.

The result? A $2,000 check going from my checking account to NJHESAA’s coffers and the reduction of my NJHESAA student loan debt from about $33 thousand down to about $31 thousand. Since I’ve now reached approximately $31 thousand in my NJHESAA student loan debt, I can now officially say that in 2010 I’ve repaid about $10 thousand of this loan…so far.

A Double Drop This Time

That’s a significant reduction – very significant. For a quick example of how significant this $10 thousand reduction has been in real terms consider this: As of January 1, 2010, I was paying $8.23 per day in interest alone on this loan. Over the course of a year, that’s $3,003.95 in interest expenses. Gross. Today, I am accruing interest at $6.40 per day or $2,336 per year. Annually, the difference in projected interest costs is $677.95. That’s a lot of money – and I’m only less than four months into my hardcore repayment strategy for the NJHESAA loan! So how much have I paid in interest thus far this year? $769.43. My goal is to keep that amount as low as possible.

Before I wrap this gloat session up, I feel compelled to add that this whole repayment thing isn’t easy. It is fun to write these entries, but repaying so much of this loan so quickly is not easy.

Remember, I created a very strong, very strict repayment plan because I want to get rid of the burden that these student loans cause me both today and tomorrow (and that “tomorrow” part is critical). An essential part of that repayment plan is focusing on wants versus needs…and it’s not easy or enjoyable to make that decision of what I want versus what I need. It’s not easy denying myself what I want to do with my paychecks versus what I really know that I need to do with those paychecks. I really want to take the approximately $2,750 that I spend on student loans each month and put a few hundred into my savings account and a few hundred into my brokerage account and then spend the rest of the money living the type of lavish lifestyle that you see on television. I’d love to do that – I’d love to go out and buy new clothes every few weeks instead of once or twice per year. I’d love to give my Mom back the small Honda Civic that I’ve been “borrowing” from her for almost two years and, instead, go out and buy a brand new hybrid SUV that would give me the roomy drive that I want and the gas mileage that I need. And I would love to travel more (like my recent trip to Nashville).

But I know that I don’t need to do those things. In fact, even more than knowing that I don’t need to do these things, I know enough about money and daily compounding interest to know that engaging in my wanted activities listed above instead of paying off my student loan debt would be condemning my future to a life of bloated student loan payments. Screw that! I’ll make the sacrifices today to make sure that tomorrow is absolutely awesome, thank you very much!

Oh, and now would be a good time to remind everyone of the “next” big repayment goal which I set for myself during the first week of March. Go ahead, click over and take a read.

I’m getting there…

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. I currently owe $86 thousand, which breaks down to $31 thousand owed to the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority and $55 thousand owed to the United States Department of Education. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

New Jersey Division of Taxation – Customer Service at its Worst

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Normally, I wouldn’t single out a government agency or private enterprise as having horrible customer service unless I was beaten down by them time and time again. In fact, I would normally reserve my angry rants until I actually had a voice-to-voice interaction with the agency – either through physically going to their location or speaking on the telephone. Typically, I wouldn’t suggest that an agency has horrible customer service based on their e-mail communication alone… Until I received an e-mail from the New Jersey Division of Taxation.

Wow.

Let me try to set the stage as quickly and clearly as possible. I use H&R Block’s “At Home” software to prepare and file my taxes each year. This year, because of an answer that I gave regarding my 2009 investments, I had to actually print my tax return and supporting documents and send them to the Division of Taxation. Believe it or not, this is the first time in many years that I’ve submitted a paper copy of my state tax return instead of e-filing, but I don’t want to go off on a techno-tangent right now.

The H&R Block program suggested a few weeks ago that there were no forthcoming software updates for the New Jersey tax program. Since I was filing by paper this year, when I saw that there were no pending changes to the program I printed out my tax return and sent it in with delivery confirmation. About a week went by and I received the stamped “received” receipt and all was well with the world.

Until I turned on the H&R Block program against last night. All of a sudden there was an update for the New Jersey tax program. I downloaded and installed the update and (surprise, surprise), my expected return nearly doubled! DOUBLED! Granted, we’re talking about going from $140 something to $280 something, but still – that’s a good little piece of money these days.

Being faced with the reality that my already-filed taxes were sitting in Trenton somewhere reporting that the state owed me less than they actually owed me, I decided to report the situation to the Division of Taxation. Figuring that in 2010 e-mail was the quickest and easiest way to get a response, I e-mailed my situation to the Division. This is what I received in return:

The New Jersey Division of Taxation received your e-mail. Due to the high volume of e-mail, please allow AT LEAST 15 business days and possibly longer for a reply. We appreciate your patience and will make every effort to respond to your e-mail as soon as possible. However, if the information listed below answers your question, you will NOT receive any further response from the Division.

So let me lay this out for everyone… My e-mail was received (good news), but the Division of Taxation is so busy that they may not be able to answer me until Thursday, April 29th (bad news)? Name me one private company on the planet that can get away with not responding to a customer inquiry for FIFTEEN business days. But wait! Read on, my friends, because the fun doesn’t end there…

Not only do I have to wait until Thursday, April 28th until I receive a response, but there is a possible chance that I’ll have to wait even longer. EVEN LONGER?! Really?!

Look, I work around the corner from the Division of Taxation building in Trenton. In fact, I walk by it every once in a while (as well as the dozen and a half people who seem to be smoking outside consistently). The building is gigantic – absolutely huge. You mean to tell me that in that gigantic, huge building there isn’t one person who can get back to me on what I should do in order to get the proper refund? Really?

That is customer service at its worst and that is why the current tax code should be replaced with the fair tax. I’ll just chalk this up to another example of how the “little people” don’t seem to really matter to the government machine.